S8, Ep. 5: Magali

Magali was born in Sri Lanka in 1992 and adopted by French parents when she was 2 months old. She grew up in a small town in France, a mostly white area, and struggled to identify with both the French and Sri Lankan cultures. She found her birth family during her first visit to Sri Lanka when she was 16 years old. She has 4 older siblings that stay in the family.

The language was a real barrier and she had to communicate with the help of a guide. Because learning Sinhalese at that time was too challenging, she decided to learn English to ensure she could communicate with most of the world. To do so she moved to London, England when she was 18 and then moved to Toronto, Canada for 6.5 years where she met her husband.

Magali stayed in touch with her birth family for a few years but had to cut ties because they kept asking her for money. She dedicated her time to teaching French to English speakers because she wanted to help people struggling to learn a second language. Magali is using self-development tools to heal and is assisting other adoptees to find peace with their stories. She wants to bring awareness and make adoptees' lives easier and lighter.

S8, Ep. 4: Jeff

Jeff is an adoptee born in 1964 in Salt Lake City Utah. He is the middle of 4 children (an older sister and younger twins, a boy and a girl) who were also adopted. He grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and always knew that he was adopted. He has been able to experience living in the Middle East and working in a variety of cultures in countries throughout the Middle East as well as Mexico and the United States.

Jeff is the founder of a non-profit organization that has helped homeless and underserved youth in San Diego and Tijuana to get off the streets and become positive contributors to changing their communities since 2005.

Jeff currently lives in San Diego, CA, and has recently become aware of the primal wound and the life-long effects of being adopted. He is seeing the impact of adoption on various other life events while also striving to heal and help as many as possible to manage and overcome the challenges that life brings to so many who have suffered various types of trauma.

S8, Ep. 3: Julie

Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. In her books, essays, and blogs, she explores the topics of finding out who you are, and where you belong, and making sense of it. She is the author of two books: Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging, and Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship. Her third book, Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood releases in February 2025.

S8, Ep. 2: Stephen

Stephen Rowley, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist practicing on Bainbridge Island,Washington. He is an adoptee and the father of an adopted son. Born in 1949 to an unwed mother, he was adopted at six months and enjoyed the benefits of growing up in a loving and affluent home. At age 13 he became deeply curious about his parentage. Not until college did he have the means to begin a lifelong quest to find his birth mother and his true identity. After years of investigation, he finally found his birth mother living in tragic circumstances. However, their poignant reunion vastly exceeded their expectations of finding each other when their souls finally reunited. As told through his memoir, Rowley traces the inner life of an adoptee, not simply the external narrative of his lifelong search.

S8, Ep. 1: Carolyn

Carolyn Hill-Bjerke is an adoptee born in 1967, during the Baby Scoop Era. She was born to 20-year-old students at the University of Connecticut. Carolyn’s biological mother was put into a maternity home. Her father moved to New York City and became a lawyer. He worked in the entertainment business.

Carolyn was in foster care for the first five months of her life as her biological mother resisted relinquishment until she no longer could. Carolyn grew up in the Washington, DC area as the daughter of a nuclear engineer and a doctor. She was an artist and writer who was misunderstood in her early life.

Carolyn attended Syracuse University and moved to New York City in 1989. Carolyn worked as a journalist before launching her career in advertising and film production. Carolyn is still a production executive, consultant, and agent – www.carolynreps.com Carolyn also earned her MFA in Poetry from Columbia University in 2003. Upon meeting her biological father in 2011, Carolyn learned her family name – Pennella – means “of the pen” in Italian signifying a lineage in writing.

Carolyn met her husband, the artist Wayne Bjerke, in New York City. They live in Connecticut near where she was born. Carolyn and Wayne have three children. The oldest, Paige Bjerke, now attends the University of Connecticut.

S7, Ep. 13: Trishina

Trishina was born in 1991 in Sevastopol, Ukraine, and was adopted at 18 months old. She was always curious about her biological family, searching on and off. Still, it wasn’t until she joined a Russian social media app called Vkontakte, that she could find some answers. Trishina is a nurse and military wife currently living in Cleveland, Ohio.

S7, Finale: Gretchen: Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood.

Gretchen Sisson, PhD is a qualitative sociologist who studies abortion and adoption in the United States, based at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, a ten-year examination of adoption relinquishment during the years of Roe.

S7, Ep: 11: Steve

Steve Inskeep is an adoptee and adoptive parent born in 1968, the peak year for adoptions in America during the Baby Scoop Era.

He is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.

Known for interviews with presidents and Congressional leaders, Steve has a passion for stories of the less famous: Pennsylvania truck drivers, Kentucky coal miners, U.S.-Mexico border detainees, Yemeni refugees, California firefighters, and American soldiers.

And now adoptees can be added to that list. Recently, he published an in-depth article in The Atlantic about America’s long history of secret adoption:

NO ONE’S CHILDREN - America's long history of secret adoption

A native of Carmel, Indiana, Inskeep is a graduate of Morehead State University in Kentucky and resides in Washington, DC.

S7, Ep: 10: Christina

Christina Thanstrom is a baby Scoop-era adoptee born in Los Angeles in 1966. A loving couple adopted her in 1967 through LA County and she had a mostly idyllic childhood with a younger brother (also adopted) in the San Fernando Valley.

Christina was reunited with her birth mother, Arleen, an R.N., at age 19 while in college (the same age Arleen had given birth to Christina). Christina learned that when Arleen’s parents discovered her pregnancy, they threw her high school graduation photo against the wall and called her a “whore.” She then went to a “home for unwed mothers” where she gave birth to Christina.

Reunion was fraught with unspoken emotions and unaddressed traumas on both sides. Sadly, Arleen died at 52. 23&Me introduced Christina to her bio-father’s family, who have opened their arms and hearts to her.

Christina and her hubby David are proud parents of adult children, Sophia and Harrison. Christina is a devoted rescue pup mom and fierce animal rescue advocate. She hopes that we overcome and eliminate the shame and the secrecy surrounding adoption on all sides of the triangle.

S7, Ep. 9: Mark

Mark Diebel has been married for almost 46 years and has two sons and two grandchildren. He has been serving as an Episcopal priest in parish ministry for thirty-six years. He was reunited with his birth mother, a second-generation Japanese immigrant, in 2004 when he was 49. A year later he learned that his natural father, a Cuban doctor, was killed in a bizarre accident in Matanzas Cuba in 1970. Over the years, he has learned about both of his first parents and visited their homes in Hawaii and Cuba. As an Episcopal priest, he advocated for adoptees and donor-conceived persons to have access to their personal information and their right to know their origins and their parentage. In May 2012, he wrote an essay, Human Nature and Truthfulness in Adoption and Donor Conception Practice, for the Journal for Christian Legal Thought. He explores the relationship between Christian theology and contemporary adoption practices. He talks about his adoption experience, adoption practices in general, race, and identity in sermons. Mark is currently working with The Episcopal Church as it begins to examine its complicity in the practice of forced adoptions during the Baby Scoop Era. He is retired and living close to his grandchildren in Owensboro, Kentucky.

S7, Ep. 8: Cary

Cary is a baby scoop-era adoptee who was born in a Florence Crittenton Home in Atlantic City NJ in 1964. Her first mother was 19 years old and was forced to relinquish her baby like many young mothers of those times. Cary had a great upbringing in a family that loved her and never made her feel othered. In her early 30s she reunited with her birth mother and then her birth father. The reunions went well for the most part, but some family members that started out enthusiastic soon became clearly uninterested in staying connected.

Even in the best situations, adoption is incredibly complex. In recent years after the death of her older, adopted, sister, Cary has been better understanding just how complex it can be. Her relationship with her sister was great—as long as she was a child. It became more complicated and difficult as adult years went by. Losing her sister, and therefore her best connection to the parents who raised her and whom she loved dearly, has brought up a lot of adoption-related issues that she hadn't really tuned into before.

What she would like people to understand most is that an adoptee can be both happy with who they grew up with, how they were raised, and the life they’ve had, while also feeling sad and having complicated feelings about the loss they started life with, and the impact adoption has had on them.

S7, Ep. 7: Ellen

Ellen is a baby scoop-era New York State adoptee. She was adopted by a loving Greek American couple through a closed private adoption and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area with a younger adopted brother.

Ellen always wanted to find her original family and searched off and on starting in the early 90s but kept hitting roadblocks. Her adoptive parents were not supportive of her search so she had very little information to go on. Then a friend had her rescue dog’s DNA tested which changed everything for the better.

S7, Ep. 6: Simone

Simone Pajo was born in Auckland New Zealand in 1968, the baby scoop era. She was the middle child between two bio children and was adopted after the death of the middle bio daughter. She grew up knowing her adoption was the result of a baby's death and this greatly affected the way she saw the world and her place in it. It has taken decades for Simone to form a coherent worldview where her right to her identity does not depend on the needs of others.

She has lived in the UK for over 30 years and is a law graduate and former journalist.

S7, Ep. 5: Ryan

Ryan Anderson is a foundling and a transnational, transracial, and late discovery adoptee (LDA). Found on the street in El Jadida, Morocco he was adopted at age 3 months and then brought to Scotland at age 6 months, in between this time he was fostered by a Moroccan family. He first found out he was adopted at age 18. Since 2020 he has been focused on personal development, to then became open to sharing his story at age 31.

S7, Ep. 4: Jessica

Jessica is a 1970 baby scoop-era adoptee, who started discovering her roots at age 50. After more than 80 years of closed records in NYS, she was able to obtain her original birth certificate in 2020. Two DNA tests and one secret after another uncovered a history of relinquishment, trauma, and family ties nearby of where she resides in upstate New York.

At 54, Jessica is learning to live her truth on her terms and allowing herself to heal from the lifelong effects of being adopted. A retired art teacher, she is running a thriving business and enjoying her life with her amazing sons and husband, all while continuing to uncover more pieces of her genetic puzzle.

S7, Ep. 3: Valerie

Valerie Naiman is an adoptee, singer, story-songwriter, eco-village founder, ontologist, and author. Her #1 bestseller book, Mystic Masquerade, an Adoptee's Search for Truth, was based on five decades of a search that took her around the world as she unraveled the mystery of her stolen identity.

Valerie holds a master's degree in Art and worked as a costume designer and actress in film and theatre in NY, Miami & LA. She’s the President of the Spirit Foundation, a non-profit that supports disenfranchised children..She also leads seekers to sacred sites in the USA and abroad. In 1990 she had an intense vision that ended up founding the first Eco-village in North America.

Through all of her adventures, she journaled her findings as she excavated her biological and spiritual identity.

Presently, Valerie is completing an audiobook version of Mystic Masquerade and producing an album of story songs about her search. She now lives on a small organic farm in Asheville, NC with her dwarf goats and honeybees.

S7, Ep. 2: Chris

Chris Valdheims is a domestic adoptee born in the late 1970s and adopted in the early 1980s after spending years of his early childhood in foster care. Growing up, he knew very little about his birth family other than his mother and father had met while she worked as a librarian at MIT. He also knew his father was Black, and his mother had immigrated to the United States from Latvia. He spent years searching for answers about his family of origin, and in 2009, he stumbled upon a complex story that involved his grandfather, a then-unknown geometric artist named Zanis Waldheims.

Following the trail from there, he began to unravel the mystery of his family history and, in the process, learn more about himself and where he had come from. His journey took him to Canada, Germany, Latvia, and Lithuania for answers, and he shares the story in a recently completed memoir for which he is currently seeking the right publishing partner. Along the way, he discovered that his father may have been one of the astronauts killed in the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle disaster.

He resides in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons and is the founder of a well-known law firm, Counsel for Creators.

S7, Ep. 1: Margaret Jane

After being an only child all her life, Margaret Jane’s adoptive parents adopted four more children through the foster care system. This experience of witnessing adoption through foster care, and being the oldest sister of a group of adoptees, has given her a unique perspective and experience with adoption.

Margaret Jane is married to her high school sweetheart, who she shares 3 kiddos with. She is an avid gardener, houseplant collector, and sourdough enthusiast. She also enjoys playing various musical instruments with her family and singing and playing for her church worship team.

Margaret Jane works as an adoption “storyteller” for Adoption.com, where her job is to write and tell her own adoption story, as well as the adoption stories of other adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents. She is passionate about educating adoptive parents on how to do adoption better. She is also passionate about amplifying adoptee voices and sharing their stories.

S6, Season Finale: Susan: I Would Meet You Anywhere

Susan Ito is the author of the memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere, published by the Ohio State University Press in November 2023. She co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption. Her work has appeared in The Writer, Growing Up Asian American, Choice, Hip Mama, Literary Mama, Catapult, Hyphen,The Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her theatrical adaption of Untold, stories of reproductive stigma, was produced at Brava Theater. She is a member of the Writers’ Grotto, and teaches at the Mills College campus of Northeastern University. She was a co-organizer of Rooted and Written, a writing workshop for writers of color.

S6, Ep. 13: Stacie

Stacie is a Canadian born and an adoptee to same race and religion parents in 1991-1992. She is part of a mixed family of adopted and “home-made” siblings, all boys, and is the second oldest. She grew up mostly outdoors in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. Traveling to Canada every summer fostered loving bonds with both of her grandmas and many cousins. Living further away from them, though, meant she had to create her group of “family” as she grew up. She’s maintained supportive friendships spanning over 25 years that have involved a lot of skiing, hiking, traveling, education, football games, collecting dogs, significant others, and now nieces and nephews.

Reading and music have always been crucial in her life allowing her to think beyond the mountains enclosing the valley she grew up in. Her parents couldn’t contain her independence early on as she studied abroad in Costa Rica and then Spain. After the initial culture shock, she thrives in solitude; searching for something untouched by her conscious mind, a longing that always tugged at her heart. Learning about and experiencing other cultures has been a way to fill the void of her unknown lineage. She isn’t afraid to show her gratitude in any setting: thankfulness, every moment, every experience, and every person who has contributed to that sense of fullness.

Regardless of the reason for “searching” for a first family, Stacie believes in adoptees. should always feel free and empowered to do so. She doesn’t believe there is a “right” way to do it as adoptees never signed a legal form to be in this position so they shouldn’t be held to the standards are adoptive parents agreed to. The World Wide Web is our friend!

Stacie hopes to finish her memoir at some point in the future and maintain healthy relationships with all the family involved in her birth and upbringing. You can find her only on Instagram @stacegrier or in the mountains. Sending so much love to all the adoptees finding their way or already there